Vera Ralston

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Vera Hruba Ralston was a Czech-born ice-skating star whose B-movie career at Republic Pictures in the 1940s and '50s never equaled her performances on the ice.

As Vera Hruba (pronounced roo-bah), Ralston was a featured attraction with the Ice Capades when she caught the attention of Herbert J. Yates, the head of Republic Pictures.

In 1941, he featured Ralston and the other members of the company in "Ice-Capades," a musical built around their skating acts. The studio followed it up a year later with "Ice-Capades Revue."

In 1943, Ralston signed a long-term contract with Republic, where she became the married Yates' protegee and later his wife.

Her first leading role was in "The Lady and the Monster," a 1944 thriller costarring Erich von Stroheim and Richard Arlen. Over the next 14 years, she appeared in 23 other Republic films, including "Lake Placid Serenade," "Storm Over Lisbon," "I, Jane Doe," "Dakota," "The Fighting Kentuckian," "The Plainsman and the Lady" and "Fair Wind to Java."

She added the surname Ralston — taken from the name of a popular breakfast cereal — because Americans had difficulty pronouncing Hruba. By 1946, after Hruba had been frequently misspelled on theater marquees, she was being billed simply as Vera Ralston.

Although Yates lavished money and attention on Ralston's films and career, most of her movies fared poorly at the box office.

Early reviews mention her woodenness and less-than-ideal command of the English language. But although her English and her acting soon improved, she never lost her Czech accent. "It was," she once said, "something I just couldn't lose, no matter how hard I tried."

Joseph Kane, who directed Ralston in a dozen films, once said in an interview that, given her relationship with Yates, "she could have made it rough on everyone," but she "never took advantage of that situation." Although Kane thought that Ralston never became a good actress, he said she was cooperative, hard-working and eager to please.

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Three thoughts about Vera Ralston

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I met Vera Ralston at Republic Studios in the mid-1950's while on an acting interview for one of her pictures. I’d worked at Republic years before—in the ‘good old days’, and my agent said Herbert Yates, head of Republic, was talking a two-picture deal. But there were problems with the unions, with the studio on its last legs, with the stockholders, yet more money was being spent on Vera Ralston films, yet they were not pulling their weight at the box-office. Inside the production level, anger was being experienced (though repressed and muffled) to do with Yates' personal obsession at trying to turn Vera into a successful movie star. I was later told by Richard Arlen that Yates had said he would loan her out to Warner Bros. or Fox, increasing the income enormously. At that, Arlen grinned, shook his head a little. He said, "More to life than meets the eye…” Vera struck me as somewhat unconcerned with any pending catastrophic situations facing Republic. She appeared mild-mannered, self-assured, beautiful but apparently (according to critics), lacking talent to meet the roles she played (no matter how structured they were for a minimal performance). On the set, I found her unassuming and friendly, working hard and pleasantly stressed by the effort, sort of unsure, but more than willing to do her best and knock herself out in doing it. She seemed impressed that I was familiar with Actors Studio in New York, though, and rightly so, she believed “so few of the New York ‘Stanislavsky’ actors,” as she put it, “ever become movie stars.” I said I agreed with her, and then she said, “Do you think too many of the psychiatrists take away the ‘motivation’ from these personalities?” I said listening to Lee Strasberg’s mumbo-jumbo could do that on its own. I knew Vera had been a refugee from Czechoslovakia, and as I'd had a step-mother whose parents were from the same Prague area, Vera shared some tidbits about “one’s youth” before the Nazi occupation. She also gave me a pointer on figure skating, as I'd been a frequent skater at Hollywood's Polar Palace for several years while aiming to be a movie star. My agent rejected the Republic deal, though now looking back. I would’ve done the picture with Vera just to work with someone working as hard as she was to improve herself. B-movies are B-movies, and some of the most creative pictures made at one time. Nobody forced anyone to see them any more than you’re forced to see your backbone when you look the other way.

”— John Gilmore, June 6, 2011 at 3:38 p.m.
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I meet Vera Ralston at Lone Pine, Ca. A film festival salute to Republic pictures. I got her autograph and told her I was a fan of hers ever since I was forced to see Lake Placid Serenade. Roy Rogers was a guest star in it. Reason I saw it. For all the different type of roles she played, I think she did good job. She really does deserved a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

”— mike weeks, May 5, 2014 at 10:37 a.m.
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WAS a fan, she never made it big in Hollywood? yates left her pretty well set though. Hopeshe didn't die broke in a nursinghome like ava & betty Hutton!!

”— Bernard Piche', December 20, 2014 at 9:41 a.m.

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